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An Ode to Ignorance

Hi there. If you don’t know who I am I don’t blame you, I’ve written two articles on here, a beginners guide to League of Legends and a review of Infamous: Second Son. I’d like to write a lot more but in all honest truth I’m shit and busy with life. With Christmas and New Year well and truly passed and a new job begun, I’ve found it difficult to manage my time between work, girlfriend, games and doing something productive. “Doing something productive” being the thing that gets shafted. My slump into games after work and seeing my girlfriend on weekends being the main detriment to any form of productivity. I want to write more and shall do from this point on (Although I wouldn’t bet my life on it…). Expect at least one article every other week (Come on I’m busy, yeah?) about games and every now again something related to technology/programming due to my current “profession” as a junior software developer and interest in all things coding and technology. As I’ve got older (read: since I’ve had a full time job.), I’ve realised that time management is a necessity and I’m terrible at it. I want to play all the games, complete cool programming tasks, watch all the new movies and do some sort of sporting activity (Sport is on the end of the list for a reason.). Why can’t I fucking do it all in massive chunks, life you cruel bitch. First world problems indeed.

This leads me to the title ‘An Ode to Ignorance’. Why, you ask? I’m referring to the time we’ve all experienced, child hood, the freedom and ignorance of it. In this case I’m mostly referring to the unlimited time I had to play video games.

The first console I remember playing was the Megadrive, collecting golden rings with Sonic, morphing with Altered Beast and not knowing where the fuck I was going in Ecco the Dolphin. At that age Sonic was fucking hard, they were all hard (You dolphin fuck), so that just made me frustrated more than anything, still does. Never completed any of them… sigh. Thus, didn’t engage me as much as it would soon after. Just got to find that first great game.

Streets of Rage was my gateway drug. I’m pretty sure I had my first hard on playing that game way before I should have. It’s a simple side-scrolling-button- mashing-weapon-wielding (That’s a known genre, right?) blast of a game. Learning to grapple enemies and perform special moves was a true revelation for me, as well as the ability to throw gas pipes at those Mohican hair styling pricks.

The real addiction began when I first played Super Mario 64. I was on holiday with my family on some hispanic island and I walked past a shop with a N64 demo station while on the hunt for a restaurant with the family. Almost magnetised, I led hands first to that trident of a controller, killing King Bomb-omb for the first time. Trust me I’ve thrown that bastard off the edge of the cliff hundreds of times. If I knew how to cook at that age I would have melted that console down and injected it right into my youthful veins. Either way I was hooked. I got my first N64 the Christmas after that holiday. Feed my autism why don’t ya, parents!

It was the beginning of the end as games would pretty much dominate most of my life from the Megadrive and the N64 all the way through Sony’s children to its current alpha, the PS4. How many times have I uttered the words “Just until the next save!” before bed time? Countless. Auto-save means today’s generation of infantile addicts can’t use this excuse, unless they’re playing Alien: Isolation (Which they shouldn’t! Get them PEGI). Their parents will already know this tactic as they’ve tried it themselves probably. Sorry kids you’re fucked in this case. I’m a grown man/child now I can play all night to my regret in the morning. Yeah, fuck you birth givers, I do what I want, I’m an adult…… Shit. I’m an adult, I have to sleep so I can actually function for work and do what I’m paid for.

I was ignorant to the requirements of adult life. Oh how glorious it was.